Second Semester (tutoring, teaching, and volunteering!)

So, what have I been up to all semester? I know my blog posts have been kind of few and far between for the past few months, but it's honestly because I've been very busy.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have been volunteering with the Township Debating League (TDL). I continued with that this semester, which was amazing! Two of the debaters from LEAP school made it onto the Western Province team and competed at the National Debating Competition. I was so proud of them.

In addition to debating, I also went to LEAP School on Saturdays to help with Foundation (8th and 9th grade) level English and Math. The students at LEAP have school on a Saturday morning (to my knowledge no public schools in South Africa do this regularly, but LEAP is privately funded by donations, etc.) LEAP, as I'm sure I've mentioned before, is an amazing school and they bus in students from all of the townships surrounding Cape Town. The school is a unique opportunity for these students to access an excellent education and a huge step toward tertiary education. For more information about LEAP school, check out http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/world/africa/09safrica.html?_r=1&ref=africa (yes, they were recently featured in the New York Times). Also, if any of you have any questions about LEAP -- please let me know. I think they're fantastic and I've really enjoyed working with the students there. And if any of you are interested in helping out some LEAP students, one of the English teachers was telling me about a small project that needs contributions -- their school library is sadly under-resourced (it's about the size of a closet). Many schools in South Africa do not have school libraries at all, which I realize is also significant, but the difference at LEAP is that they actually have teachers and staff who are willing and able to take care of the books, library, and encourage students to use the resources. The English teacher at LEAP expressed her concern that there are very few teenage fiction books for students who just enjoy reading and want to have something on their level to practice English, reading, etc. So if any of you feel so inclined, let me know and we can make a plan to donate some books to the library! :)

I have also had the tremendous honor of tutoring at UCT this past semester. I was given a position as a tutor for two sections of a first year International Politics course. Tutoring is actually quite a big responsibility and quite different than what I previously thought of as tutoring. Instead of just helping students who need extra help, which is what the name implies in the US, tutoring in South Africa actually requires teaching, grading, and office hours. I started with two sections of the course with 10-15 students in each and we met once a week. My job was to make sure students understood material from lectures, were aware of assignments, and marking their assignments. As the semester progressed, several of the tutors realized the disparity between what UCT and the Politics department expects from students and the skills they come into university possessing. There is also quite a vast array of skill levels even in my small classes. I had several students from disadvantaged backgrounds who had never written a non-fiction academic paper before coming to university. Several of my students had difficulty with academic reading and writing. As a result, some of the tutors put together (mid-semester) a curriculum to respond to this disparity. One of the department teaching assistants lobbied for funding to add additional tutorial sections for students who were struggling significantly. This past semester, we were able to add about 6 sections of supplementary tutorials to assist these students. We taught reading, writing, note-taking, and study skills and watched the students' confidence and abilities increase over the course of the semester. It was one of the most rewarding things I've ever done. From the beginning of the course, I had students who were barely passing and by the end some of them were getting the highest marks in their courses. It's amazing what a little support, extra teaching, and encouragement can do!

I was able to do some evaluation of that program for the department and the results were amazing. Over the course of the semester, the students who were involved in the supplementary program improved quite dramatically and nearly 100% of them enjoyed the course and would recommend it. Also, about 94% of students who attended said that their confidence improved significantly as a result of the course.

Now, the Politics Department and the UCT Centre for Higher Education Development are funding the production of course materials (a reading and writing guide for first years) and curriculum development for a supplementary tutorial program for first year UCT Politics Students for next year. I'm so excited about it! :) I'm happy to be involved with the development of those resources and to participate in the program again next semester.

Oh yeah, and I also took a class on Regionalism in Africa, which was very interesting! I'm also proud to report that it's the class that I've done the best in this year.

I hope this has caught you up a bit on what I've been up to this semester and some of the amazing projects I've been able to be a part of!

Sandboarding in Namibia

No visit to Namibia is complete without sandboarding on the amazing and massive sanddunes in the desert. So beautiful, so much fun, such a tough walk up those things! :)

So sandboarding... it's kind of like snowboarding except you do it in shorts because it's a hot desert outside and when you fall the sand is soft and doesn't hurt like snow and ice (which is really nice!). I have never snowboarded on really soft powdery snow, but I imagine that the sand is a lot more like powdery snow than the hard icy stuff that I've snowboarded on before. So much fun!